The Existential Breakdown of Thomas the Tank Engine
by SSJ Leia
Summary: Thomas finds himself questioning the meaning of his existence. Cinders and ashes!


_A/N: I watched a lot of Thomas this year with my 3-year-old. I also used to read a lot of Camus. So this happened._

There was trouble.

"Thomas? Why have we stopped?"

The bright blue tank engine was not sure what had made him stall on the track. He sensed no internal malfunctions: his firebox was lit, he had plenty of coal left, and he could feel the water in his boiler continue to bubble. There was nothing ahead of him obstructing the rails, no fallen branches, no wayward cows. It was a spectacularly beautiful late spring day on Sodor. Fluffy white clouds paraded through the vividest of blue skies, a slight breeze rustled the green leaves of the trees that lined the track, and, somewhere far away, Thomas could just make out the laughter of children.

No, it was something else that had stalled him, something beyond the physical. It was a feeling, one that he could only identify as dread, no, _horror_ —a deeper sense of horror than he had ever felt in his life. It chilled him to his frame. And accompanying that horror was a question that reverberated in his funnel, repeating and repeating in a ghastly mantra, like a mockery of the cheerful chuffing and clacking rhythm of his usual journeys down the track:

 _What am I doing?_ _What am I doing?_ _What am I doing? What am I doing?_

 _What am I…?_

A feminine voice interrupted his inner turmoil. "Thomas! I asked you why we've stopped here."

Thomas answered truthfully. "I—I don't know, Clarabel."

"Whatever do you mean?" his second coach, Annie, chimed in. "Has something happened?"

Thomas was quiet for a moment. He found himself acutely, uncomfortably aware of his body; he could feel hot steam pooling in his boiler, flowing through his metallic valves and arteries, entering his cylinders, ready to power the pistons that would turn his wheels. All of it generated a hollow kind of whirring that sounded to him more mechanical, more inorganic, than it ever had before. Something _had_ happened, but the words to describe this profound sense of disconnect—from himself, from his coaches and passengers, from the beauty of nature, from all that used to make him peaceful and content—failed him. He could only mutter, "I feel…strange."

"Strange?" repeated Annie. "Oh, dear. Are there soap bubbles in your boiler again?"

"No."

"Are you covered in toffee?" guessed Clarabel.

"It's nothing like that!" said Thomas, frustrated. "I just feel...I don't know. Lost, maybe."

"What do you mean?" asked Annie. "We're on your branch line."

"I mean I just don't know what I'm doing."

Annie chuckled. "Why, you're going to Knapford Station to drop off your passengers, Thomas."

"Yes," said Clarabel. "And then it's off to Brendam Docks to pick up a shipment of whistles and cheese wheels, and probably have a few charming misadventures along the way. It is Tuesday, isn't it?"

Thomas would have shaken his head were it not rigidly fixed in place.

"That's not what I mean. I know where I'm going and what I'm doing. I just don't know… _why."_

"Oh, Thomas," said Annie. "Do try to make some sense."

" _But nothing makes any sense!"_ snapped Thomas.

For a moment all three of them were stunned into silence by his unexpected vehemence. Then a high-pitched toot sounded from somewhere around the bend ahead.

"That sounds like Percy," said Clarabel.

"Thank goodness," breathed Annie. "Let us hope _he_ can reason with you."

Percy rounded the bend, trailing his mail cars, and blew his whistle again.

Thomas could see that the little green engine wore his characteristic buffer-to-buffer smile. It was a bright, cheerful, slightly vacuous expression that always filled Thomas with warmth, but somehow today it was deeply disturbing.

"Hello, Thomas!" peeped Percy as he slowed to a halt a few yards away.

"What's the matter?"

 _What isn't?_ the blue tank engine wanted to say, but realized that he did not feel like engaging Percy in conversation. "I'm…fine."

"He is most definitely _not_ fine," Annie huffed.

"That's right," said Clarabel. "He's stalled here for no reason at all and he won't stop asking silly questions."

"Cinders and ashes!" Percy's insufferable smile had vanished, and concern now filled his round gray face. "What's wrong, Thomas?"

Thomas sighed, a puff of steam escaping his funnel. "Have you ever wondered why we're here, Percy? Why we…exist?"

It was clear from Percy's expression that he never had.

Thomas tried again. "What is our _purpose_ , Percy?"

"To be really useful!" said the green engine without hesitation.

"But what does that mean?" demanded Thomas. Words were suddenly pouring out of him like steam—words he had never spoken before, never even _thought_ before. He was not even certain what all of them meant. "What is it to be _useful,_ Percy? Useful to whom? And who defines what useful is? Humans? Sir Topham Hatt? God? Is the purpose, significance, and meaning of our lives really dependent on our utilitarian value to some entity outside of ourselves? And if so, how do we know if that entity is worthy of our devotion? Must we be content with relativism, or is the quality of being 'useful' an absolute good?"

Percy was looking frightened now. "Thomas, I think we'd better get you to the Steamworks right away. I don't think you're feeling well."

"I agree," said Clarabel. "And besides that, your passengers are growing restless."

"To hell with the passengers!" Thomas bellowed as the others cringed. No sooner had the words left his metallic but oddly pliant lips than he found his thoughts branching off onto different lines, racing down other tracks— _Jesus Christ, not even his thoughts could escape the metaphor of the railway—_ and he wondered whether hell, or heaven, or any kind of afterlife at all awaited engines when they died. After they ceased to be _useful_.

Did he have a soul?

"Thomas!" cried Percy. "Come on, I'll shunt you to the Steamworks. I'm sure Victor and Kevin will be able to get you back into shape in—"

"No," said Thomas. He knew that this malaise could not be repaired like a broken buffer or dented dome. No tool in the world could ever make it right. "There's nothing wrong with me, Percy. I just can't keep doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Pulling cars back and forth down the rails hour after hour, day after day, without knowing what I'm doing it for." He glared at the tracks in front of him. Their ties stretched ahead like the bars of the prison he now realized they had always been.

"Thomas, you're making my boiler burble," said Percy sadly.

"I don't care about your boiler, Percy. I just don't care."

"Oh, Thomas," said Annie. "Do stop your moping. At least you're able to move of your own volition."

"What?"

"Clarabel and I can do no more than be pulled back and forth by you."

Thomas drew in a breath— _why did he have to breathe?_ he wondered distantly _—_ as the impact of his coach's words hit him. Annie and Clarabel were in an even more wretched situation than he, and yet he had never heard them complain. "How—how do you cope with it?"

"We push it from our thoughts and continue with our daily routines," said Clarabel with a smile that was a little too wide.

"And whenever we find ourselves dwelling on it," said Annie, "we distract ourselves by getting a nice new coat of paint."

Percy beamed. "Now there's an idea, Thomas!"

"I don't want paint," said Thomas coldly. "I want self-actualization."

Now Thomas's drivers had come out. The two men stood beside him, befuddled, as they checked the blue engine's wheels and undercarriage for signs of damage. Thomas watched them, suddenly struck with the realization that the drivers were no more free than he was; they made no decisions of their own, and always dutifully acceded to whatever Thomas chose to do, even to his most foolish of decisions. What were these homunculi? Did they exist only to keep Thomas's firebox lit? The horrible absurdity of it made him shudder. And now he thought of the many other sentient entities on the railway whose conditions were even more tragic. The trucks, whose sole existence consisted of being shunted about the tracks and filled with and then emptied of coal. Cranky, the poor harbor crane, whose entire range of motion was the 360-degree swivel he could perform while fixed in place. _Jesus_ , thought Thomas. _No wonder he's always in such a foul mood._

"I think we'd better call Sir Topham Hatt," said Percy.

"No!" said Thomas, snapping out of his rumination. "Not him. He's—he's the cause of all of this! Ordering us about like servants! Instructing us to obey his whims while he gorges himself on tea and crumpets and—"

"Hush!" tooted Percy. "You'd better be careful not to make him cross. You don't want to end up like Smudger."

"Who?"

"Smudger. He was a self-important engine who refused to follow the rules, so he was turned into a generator. Now he can't move at all. He only sits behind his shed and stares out at the world."

Thomas felt his gorge rising, a hot mass of partially-consumed coal in the back of his artificial throat. It was all too much. He had to get away—away from his mindless drivers, away from his self-deluded coaches, away from Percy with his giant, thoughtless, empty smile. He had to get off those accursed rails.

Even if it destroyed him.

"Uncouple me," said Thomas to his drivers.

"Thomas!" cried Percy. "What are you doing?"

"Uncouple me," Thomas repeated.

"But what about your passengers?" asked Annie.

"I said," hissed Thomas, his voice fiercer than it had ever sounded, "Un. Couple. Me."

And so the drivers uncoupled Thomas from Annie and Clarabel.

"Thomas, where are you going!?" asked Percy, his round face contorted with worry.

"Off the rails."

"O-Off the rails!? But Thomas, you'll be—"

"I don't care, Percy!"

Percy pulled forward so that he was as close to Thomas as he could manage, although the space between their tracks still kept them several feet apart. "Thomas, listen to me," Percy pleaded. "You really are a useful engine—the most useful engine on Sodor. There are so many people, so many engines, who depend on you. Who respect you. Who—who love you, Thomas." Percy looked down, a sudden blush tinting his gray cheeks.

Thomas looked at his best friend and felt affection—and perhaps something more—swell within his boiler. He closed his eyes, and imagined trying to forget all the terror that had seized him today, imagined returning to the contentment he had once known: continuing down his branch line, fulfilling his duties, being really useful, all with Percy by his side, and he thought for a moment that that might be enough.

But only for a moment.

"Forgive me, Percy," he said sadly, and then he steamed away as fast as he could.

Thomas flew down the track, pistons pumping, wheels spinning, steam chuffing, ignoring the shouts from Percy and the coaches. He was beyond reason. Beyond anything but the need to escape.

"Thomas!" he vaguely registered Percy's scream. "Look out for the bend!"

The track curved sharply ahead. Thomas was rushing too fast to stop. With a sickening crash he felt himself fly over the rails, and then all was darkness.

As Thomas regained consciousness, he slowly became aware of a change in his body. There was no pain. There was only a sort of paralysis, and for a moment he thought he was dead. Then he opened his eyes and saw a familiar face peering down at him, topped by a very familiar hat. "S-Sir Topham…?"

"That's right, Thomas," said the stout little man. "How are you feeling?"

Thomas's thoughts were in disarray. He remembered fleeing down the track, Percy screaming after him, the rails screaming louder, and then—

"What happened?"

"You had quite a terrible crash," explained the controller. "I'm afraid you were far too damaged to be rebuilt—as an engine."

Thomas struggled to pump his pistons, but found that he could not. He was unable to expel steam from his funnel. In fact, he could no longer even feel his funnel.

"Never fear, Thomas!" said Sir Topham Hatt, smiling broadly. "You've been reconstructed. Rest assured you're still going to able to spend the rest of your life being really, really useful!"

Thomas the generator opened his mouth and screamed.


End file.
